gentle words of sweet suicide
by Luciiraptar
Summary: Quinn is having troubles, and Rachel is trying to help her. Quinn hates herself, and Rachel is trying to love her. WARNING: Angst, mentions suicide, rampant self-hate, voices.


**A/N: WARNING SAD THINGS AHEAD IT WILL MAKE YOU SAD DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SAD**

**You've been warned, so stay away if you don't want to be sad. Hugs for anyone that needs them.**

* * *

"Don't go away. Please, Rachel. I need you."

"It's okay, Quinn. I'm not going anywhere. Promise."

"I love you."

"Yeah. I love you, too."

* * *

There are days where Quinn can't see. Not in a literal way; her eyes accept light and translate it in their way to colors and shapes.

She simply can't reconcile those shapes and colors with ideas and concepts and the like.

There are other days where she finds herself waking up in bed, and she can't get up from the crushing weight of life. Those are the days that Rachel appears, and smoothes the cracks in her psyche until they're barely noticeable.

Every other day, Rachel simply meets Quinn at the school doors, sweeps her up into a hug and spins her a little (which is strange, because Quinn is taller, and stronger, than Rachel) and kisses her good morning. Rachel walks Quinn to each class, sits with her at lunch, holds her hand, makes her smile and laugh. If Quinn needs it, Rachel protects her, as well.

Rachel is, quite simply, everything to Quinn.

* * *

"Rach, the voices. They're coming back. Please help!"

"Shh, Quinn. I'm here. I'll protect you."

"Thank you, Rachel. Don't leave. If you leave, they come."

"They won't come tonight."

* * *

When the voices come _Why don't you lie down forever_ they always sound so sweet, crooning in her ear _Just dig that knife in to the bone_ gentle words of sweet suicide, begging her to _A sip of bleach, just a little sip_ listen to them and damage herself. Permanently.

A part of Quinn wants to give in to them. She's tired of the constant fight.

But then she sees Rachel and _She doesn't love you_ she remembers all the time they've spent _She thinks you're disgusting, worthless_ kissing and holding each other, telling each other _She'd rather you just die_ their darkest wishes, secrets, thoughts.

She folds herself into Rachel's warm embrace.

When she's in Rachel's arms, the voices don't come.

* * *

"Rachel, we should go see a movie."

"Tomorrow?"

"Why not today?"

"I'm tired."

"Fine."

* * *

They have their little quarrels, like every couple. But it's different for them. Quinn is too insecure about their relationship, no matter how many times Rachel kisses her to sleep and awake.

It's the voices.

They're _She thinks you're fake_ always _You don't deserve her_ talking _She isn't even gay_ to _See how she looks at those boys?_ Quinn.

Now, even (mostly) when she's with Rachel. It's getting harder and harder to resist their bittersweet call to death. Quinn knows Rachel doesn't really love her. There's no way such a beautiful, amazing girl could love a fuck-up like Lucy Quinn Fabray, High Queen of Insanity.

Besides, Rachel isn't even gay.

* * *

"Can you tell me what the voices say?"

"No."

"How am I supposed to help you if you don't tell me anything, Quinn?"

"I don't know!"

* * *

It's impossible for Quinn to point out exactly when the voices started talking to her. Seven, maybe, or nine. In that early range. She didn't know it was bad until she was eleven, when her father caught her staring at knives and told her that the voices were demons and she couldn't ever tell anyone about them.

Rachel was trying to help her with them. Ever since she'd admitted her depression to the glee club with a performance of "Teen Idle" by Marina and the Diamonds, and then later confessed the rest of it to a worried Rachel, the wonderful girl had been trying to help her.

_You're broken You won't ever be fixed She doesn't love you_

Quinn tells the air to shut the hell up. Then she scoots to the edge of the bed and hangs upside-down, because that makes the voices go away sometimes. She slips lower and lower down the side of the bed, until her head touches the floor. The temptation to crumple all of her weight onto her neck is unbearable.

Quinn texts Rachel to ask when she's coming over. Then she wraps herself in her blanket (starting from the right) and sticks her left foot out of the cocoon she becomes. She can hear Judy downstairs, and then Judy leaves. And then Rachel is standing in her doorway, looking tired.

That's become more and more common, Quinn notes. Rachel shows up looking tired, doesn't want to kiss or talk. Quinn says she wants to have sex.

Rachel says she's not ready.

_What she means is not with you, not ever_

_She doesn't love you She doesn't love you_

_She thinks you're disgusting._

Quinn doesn't say anything to Rachel, turns on her side instead. If Rachel doesn't want to talk, then Quinn won't talk. Quinn thinks about the voices, and how right they are. Rachel doesn't care. Rachel doesn't love her. Rachel is straight.

Rachel comes to Quinn, tries to apologize. Quinn doesn't say anything. Instead, she just lays flat on her stomach and presses her face into her pillow. She can't smother herself, which she knows because she's tried. Besides, Rachel would stop her.

They curl up in bed together, silent.

The voices swirl above Quinn's head.

* * *

"Why are you still here?"

"Because I love you, Quinn."

"Funny way of showing it, sucking his face off."

"I'm sorry, Quinn! I messed up! Not like you haven't messed up in your life!"

"You don't love me! How can you? I'm too messed up… and you're not even gay."

* * *

The words hang between them. Rachel's eyes widen, almost comically. Laughing will make the situation worse, though, so Quinn just turns away.

Rachel tries to say something, but Quinn doesn't hear. She's turned herself off, to save herself as much as possible.

So she doesn't resist when she feels surprisingly powerful arms turning her, pulling her closer.

And then a kiss.

A powerful kiss; a kiss that makes Quinn feel, feel straight down to the core of her. A kiss that brings up burning feelings of lust and love, things Quinn buried a long time ago and refused to dredge up. But with those come the other things Quinn repressed: Her sadness, her self-hatred, her hate of others, her need to feel close, her need to push away. And with all of these things crowding in on her, she let out an almost pained moan.

Rachel, blessed Rachel, knew every inch of Quinn and every sound Quinn made, every minute vibration of her, as she should after so long together, pulled away and asked if Quinn was okay but Quinn said nothing and instead pulled Rachel close, kissing her again, harder, taking and taking and taking, and she knew she'd take until the brunette refused to give, because Quinn was in a taking mood and she knew that if Rachel backed out now, it would mean that the girl didn't really love her, and Quinn couldn't take that now.

Quinn doesn't know how they get out of their shirts; all she knows is that Rachel is wearing the sexiest innocent bra ever, and she doesn't know when the pants come off, but she does know when it blends into a euphoric haze, and when it ends, crashing through earth and into heaven as she grinds her way to bliss.

Afterwards, she lies, content, with her new lover.

The voices don't come for her.

* * *

"Rachel, where are you going?"

"I need to think."

"About?"

"Last night."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want to have sex with you."

"You didn't say no."

"It wasn't how I planned."

"You didn't push me away."

"Dammit, Quinn! I know! But I should have! It shouldn't have been—"

"What? Here? With me? Shouldn't have been what?"

"Forget it, Quinn."

"No. Tell me."

"It… it should have been after you got better."

* * *

Quinn is running away.

There's no graceful way to say it; she's running from Rachel and that pitying gaze, the pitying gazes of her fellow glee members and classmates. God! Why didn't she see them before?

The haze of love, she know. It was all Rachel's fault, that disgusting whore. Tricking Quinn into having sex with her. Tricking her into being a lesbian.

She knocked lightly on her sister's door, and soon found herself wrapped in a warm embrace, her sister whispering in her ear that she was so worried, mom was so worried. Rachel was worried.

Quinn tells her sister to never mention Rachel again.

She settles into a routine in her sister's house, sleeping and eating and reading and writing. There are alarms in each room Quinn resides in, to let her know when it's time to go to the next thing. Doing everything at the same time every day is comforting to her, and she feels herself getting better. Things get clearer. She feels… human again.

She can tell her sister is relieved by the progress. Frannie doesn't talk to Quinn often, and neither does her husband, but they both like how much more normal Quinn is becoming. Quinn speaks, sometimes. Even though it hurts to, she speaks for her sister, for that bright smile and fond hand on her arm.

Some days, though, Quinn locks herself in her room and subjects herself to the voices, because she's a masochist and wants to see if they can convince her. She has ten or so pills she stole from her sister, waiting for her if she wants them. She doesn't know what they are, but Quinn is reasonably sure they'll kill her if she takes ten and slashes her wrists.

Some days, she just doesn't bother getting out of bed.

It's one of these days that she suddenly feels a warm body pressing against her back. She knows it isn't Frannie, since her sister would never invade her private space like this. And the form has bigger breasts, anyways.

Quinn turns over to face Rachel.

She slaps the brunette.

It feels good, so she slaps her again, and again, and again, until she's crying, until Rachel restrains her, whispers that I love you, won't leave you, please stop crying, Quinn, please, and Quinn just submits, laying still until she stops crying. She doesn't talk to Rachel.

Doesn't the brunette know she's screwing everything up?

Quinn stays still until Rachel leaves.

* * *

"What are you doing here again, Rachel?"

"I'm not leaving until you talk to be about us, Quinn."

"We were together. You were a lying whore. We weren't. The end."

"Quinn…"

"What else is there, Rachel? You're the one that didn't love me! You're the one that tricked me! _You're the one that brought them back!_"

* * *

Rachel's leaving takes a chunk out of Quinn's soul.

She locks her bedroom door, feeling off-kilter. Everything's wrong. Nothing's the way it's supposed to be and _YOU UGLY SLUT JUST KILL YOURSELF_ and they're screaming in her ears and _SHE HATES YOU NOW YOU FILTHY DYKE_ and she wants to give in so badly but _She isn't even gay, wasn't ever, just playing you, getting back for all the shit you put her through, just swallow those pills and slash your wrists and cut your throat and bleed out like the disgusting pig you are_

She has a choice.

Quinn has always had a choice.

She finds her way to her pills, gripping herself hard. She has a choice, between life and death. Life means voices and heartbreak and Rachel. Death means… nothingness. Or hell. Quinn doesn't know if she still believes in hell, or heaven. Maybe that means she's going to hell, no matter what she does. No matter her decision. She's certainly going to hell for what she feels for Rachel and her body and so many things.

She's too tired to argue with herself. She accepts it now, that she's gay, that she's in love with Rachel. In her mind, Quinn tells her father to go fuck himself. She can imagine Russell's shocked face, unable to imagine her daughter growing a spine.

She still has a choice to make.

In one hand, life. In the other, death.

One leads back to Rachel. Well, both lead back to Rachel, so perhaps the better way to put it is, one leads _forward_ to Rachel. Maybe Quinn can salvage this, if she begs. If she tries to talk. If she tries to ignore the voices.

The other, and more appealing path, leads to death. A nothing that never ends. No more pain, no more Rachel. No more pitying looks or people asking how she is. She wants to die, she realizes. As much as she wants to live; the forces are evenly matched, and she can't decide.

She gets a text from Rachel that says I'll be back tomorrow, wear something nice.

Quinn suddenly decides she's tired. She's tired of everything and she wants to rest.

So she makes her choice.


End file.
